The rector of the VAVT has at least two sons: the elder Sergey Sergeyevich Sinelnikov-Murylev and the younger Peter Sergeyevich Sinelnikov-Murylev. Both graduated from the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. Peter graduated from the university only in 2021. The eldest son is married to Elena Sinelnikova-Muryleva, nee Lubnikova, who, like Sergei Germanovich, works at RANEPA assistant professor at the Institute of Economics, Mathematics and Information Technology. The couple has a son Herman.
The large family of the VAVT rector owns the French Tanagra companyfounded in 2012. She, according to the official French registers, is engaged in real estate transactions, namely, its acquisition and rental. As a rule, it is this form of personal property ownership – through a company – that is optimal in France.
The legal address of this company is the Côte d’Azur in France, in the second largest city of Antibes in Provence, located between Cannes and Nice.
The company is divided between members of the Sinelnikov-Murylev family: one part belongs to the rector himself and his wife Elena, the other belongs to the family of the eldest son, and the third belongs to the youngest son Peter, who at the time of the company’s creation was no more than 13 years old.
At the address indicated in official company documents, there are two private houses where the rector’s grandson Herman spends time in winter (judging by the photos from his Instagram profile, which included part of the fence surrounding the house and the blue gate opposite it).
Despite the fact that the houses belong to both the adult sons of the VAVT rector and himself, this property was never indicated in the income declaration of Sinelnikov-Murylev and his wife. Of the foreign property, as the couple claimed in the declaration for 2021, they only own a share in a Latvian apartment of 114 sq.m.
The house, owned by the rector and his family, has several bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace, a summer terrace with a barbecue area, and a solarium terrace. In addition to the good view from the window of the villa and the tropical garden, there is a swimming pool on the territory of the house.
According to the company’s charter, when buying a house on the Cote d’Azur, the cost of the house on the Cote d’Azur was 1 million 838 300 thousand euros, and the furniture for it cost the family of the VAVT rector 61.7 thousand euros. The rector and his family bought a house on the Cote d’Azur in November 2011, according to the documents. However, the total annual income of the rector and his wife for 2012 – the first period for which the head of the state university had to report – amounted to about 31 million 878 thousand rubles. At the same time, the cost of the house, according to the exchange rate of the euro against the ruble at the time of buying the house, was almost 80 million rubles.
Sergei Sinelnikov-Murylev was involved in several major scandals related to plagiarism in dissertations of famous Russian scientists. Yes, he supervised dissertation George IdrisovVice-Rector of the RANEPA and a close associate of the Rector of the RANEPA Vladimir Maufound plagiarism in it. Vladimir Mau, Rector of the RANEPA, reacted sharply to this discovery of Dissernet, who then refused to answer Dissernet’s questions about obvious borrowings and did not initiate any investigation into the violation of academic ethics by Idrisov and Sinelnikov-Murylev. From Sinelnikov-Murylev, there were no public explanations of the plagiarism “unnoticed” by him in Idrisov’s dissertation either.
Thanks to Sinelnikov-Murylev – at least thanks to his inactivity at meetings in the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission in 2019-2022, while he was a member of the commission – were saved from the deprivation of academic degrees of dozens of plagiarists in economic specialties. As a rule, if Sinelnikov-Murylev was present at the meeting, he agreed with the chairman of the VAK Filippov and only occasionally advocated that the plagiarist be deprived of his degree.
“New Newspaper. Europe” and DOXA asked Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev for a comment, he agreed to talk.
The rector indirectly confirmed that he had real estate in Antibes, but assured that he always indicated it in his declarations.
“Those who should know about my property, real estate, everyone already knows everything. I have everything legally – that’s the only thing I can say. I submit declarations as a rector and as a vice rector, and there are no questions for me, do you understand? What you are telling me now is somehow strange. You just call me with the question: “How long have you stopped beating your mother-in-law?” How should I answer this question? Do you understand the position you’re putting me in? Everything I have is absolutely legal and declared to the penny, ”Sinelnikov-Murylev is indignant.
In response to the correspondent’s remark that the French villa was not included in the rector’s declarations, the rector replied that he was submitting full declarations, where he indicated the villa, and the government removed it from the public part. “This is not in the public declaration. The declaration that I submit is then edited and posted on the site. And it may not have everything. Therefore, what you are doing now is very ugly, because you can attract all sorts of criminal structures in this way,” he says. – Therefore, our dear and beloved government does not do this – it itself looks at everything, checks, describes what is needed, and publishes information that is not dangerous for those who submit declarations. This is not my point of view, but the government’s. I declare everything according to a given form, and they publish what they consider necessary. And now you are pulling out what is unpleasant and not worth doing.
There is indeed a non-public part in the declarations, and it concerns the provision of information about the companies owned by the rector, says Grigory Mashanov, senior lawyer at Transparency International – Russia. The Tanagra company, owned by the Sinelnikov-Murylev family, also falls under this definition. The villa really could not be in the declaration, since it was recorded on the company. But if the rector’s family uses the villa, then in any case he is obliged to declare it.
“Even the property that the declarant uses, and not only owns, must be declared. If 100% of the house was registered to an adult [ребенка], then the real estate really would not be reflected in the declaration in any way. But since the wife and minor children have shares, they still should have been included in the declaration. It is difficult to verify this, but if Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev is a participant in the property management share or his wife or minor sons used it, then we can say that he certainly uses it or has another real right to it, ”says Mashanov.
The fact that Sergei Sinelnikov-Murylev’s expenses for a villa on the Cote d’Azur do not match his income at the time of purchase, as well as the fact that the house is not listed in the declarations, may be grounds for dismissal. “For this [увольнения] the employer must lose confidence in his employee. There is a practice according to which it is believed that the provision of an unreliable declaration in any case means a loss of confidence, ”concludes the lawyer.
Under civil service and anti-corruption legislation, civil servants and other public officials are required to submit annual income and asset declarations. Information is also submitted in relation to members of their families: spouses and minor children. The declarations contain information on income for the past year, on the ownership of vehicles and real estate, shares and obligations of a property nature.
This procedure is necessary for civil and state control over people who have access to budgetary funds, and to prevent their misuse. Among those who are required to submit declarations in Russia, there are rectors and vice-rectors of universities. However, not all property actually falls into the reporting: some rectors seek to hide their foreign assets.
We decided to look for real estate in France, since the official documents of French companies, through which most often they buy villas and apartments in this country, are in the public domain and we could study them. To calculate the value of real estate, we used the euro against the ruble at the beginning of August.
As part of this investigation, we consistently checked the rectors and vice-rectors of all universities in Moscow, but it turned out that all three people from whom we managed to find undeclared French real estate are somehow connected with the RANEPA (Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation). We cannot say that the rectors and vice-rectors of other Moscow universities do not have foreign real estate at all – it may be located in other countries that we have not yet been able to verify. In addition, some rectors could buy real estate not in the name of the company, but in their own name, use offshore services or use offshore to open a French company; in all these cases, we would not be able to detect such objects, therefore, even for France, our list does not pretend to be complete.
However, in 2014, according to the business register of the French newspaper Le Figaro, the namesakes of Sergei and Pavel Myasoedov founded a real estate management company (SCI “Ciz”) in Cannes. Such companies are created specifically for the purpose of owning real estate and their purpose is not to make a profit.
The data of the Myasoyedovs, indicated in the documents of the company Ciz, coincide with the data of the vice-rector and his family. Pavel became the general manager of the company, and his father Sergey became a partner. According to the documents, the Myasoyedovs’ real estate located in a prestigious area called California Peso, on Costa Belle Avenue, 24, in the villa “Bonne Maison”. Next to the Myasoyedovs’ house is the Villa “La Californie”, where the world-famous artist Pablo Picasso lived from 1955 to 1961.
According to the official cadastral map of France and meilleursagents website, the area of the site, located at 24 Costa Belle Avenue, is 3.5 thousand m2. The cost per square meter of apartments on this site varies from 5.6 thousand euros to 13.3 thousand euros. A square meter of a separate house is more expensive: from 6.3 thousand to 15.1 thousand euros. To date, the price is equivalent to the amount of 334 thousand to 795 thousand rubles per square meter of apartments and from 376.6 thousand to 902.8 thousand rubles per square meter of a separate villa. In general, in the Pesu area of California, the median value of real estate is estimated at 8 thousand euros per square meter.
At the time of publication of the material, apartments and a villa are being sold on Costa Belle Street. The 132 m2 apartment is priced at 2 million euros – this is 119 million rubles. A villa of 450 m2 can be purchased for 11.4 million eurosthat is, for 681.6 million rubles.
The declarations of heads of universities do not indicate the income and property of adult children. Sergey Myasoedov in 2013, a year before the purchase of real estate, earned 16.8 million rubles. At the time of the purchase of real estate and the founding of the French organization, his son Pavel Myasoedov was only 22 years old. His entrepreneurial career, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, was just beginning.
On the RANEPA website you can find the material of 2018 about IBDA with the participation of Sergey Myasoedov. The text noted that the director of the institute was then in Cannes, where in mid-July he watched the victory of France in the World Cup. His son Pavel was nearby in Antibes in August 2018, judging by the mark on photos on facebook. If they spent this time in their villa on the Cote d’Azur, then Sergei Myasoedov was obliged to indicate it in his declaration, because in fact he used it.
“Vice-rector Myasoedov is subject to control of the law on illicit enrichment, so [наличие такой виллы — это] in general, a reason to check whether spending on French real estate matches his official income. In addition, in any case, he had to declare corporate rights to a real estate management company, but this is visible only in the non-public part of the declaration, says Grigory Mashanov, a lawyer at Transparency International Russia. “He may also be prohibited from using foreign financial instruments if the performance of his official duties provides for access to information of special importance or participation in the preparation of decisions affecting issues of sovereignty and national security of the Russian Federation.”
The son of Sergei Myasoedov Pavel continues to regularly visit France and upload photos to his social networks. Landscapes of the Cote d’Azur are repeated in several April pictures of this year. In addition, Pavel himself tells where the photographs were taken: somewhere they accompanied emoji in the form of the flag of France, and under others at all places indicatedwhere the pictures were taken. He even signed one of the photographs in French – “Côte d’Azur”.
According to Kommersant, the FSB believes that Bartsits and Larina agreed with their colleagues and began to issue bonuses to them, which they returned to them in cash, minus a small “commission” for services. The role of Aslan Feyzba in this case is not clear. In March 2021 Bartsits pleaded guilty and paid damages in the amount of several million rubles.
Igor Bartsits began teaching at the RANEPA in 1996; is member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Public Chamber. In addition, from 2009 to 2011, Bartsits was an expert of the Presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Combating Corruption.
Igor Bartsits participated in the defense of at least five dissertations with plagiarism: four times as a supervisor and once as an opponent. Among those “dissertated” by him are Natalia Ozhegina, former First Deputy Governor of the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous Okrug, abolished in the 2000s, now Deputy Chairman of the Board of PJSC Rosseti, and Georgy Chekhoev, namesake of the Acting Prosecutor of the Southwestern Administrative District of Moscow .
Due to ethical violations, Bartsits was removed from the editorial boards or editorial boards of the journals Administrative Law and Practice of Administration, Administrative and Municipal Law, Police and Investigative Activities, Economic Policy at RANHIGS, Communicology.
As director of the IGSU, Bartsits paid much attention to international cooperation and did internships in Germany, the USA and France. Answering the Interfax question about why, of all Russian universities, it is RANEPA that organizes events at the Russian Center in Paris, he pointed out “long-term developments of Russian-French university cooperation on the basis of RANEPA”.
Not the last role in these developments was played by Igor Bartsits himself: he participated in coordinating cooperation programs and double degrees, for example, with KEDGE Business school. IGSU also had eight French partners, one of which became University of the Cote d’Azur (Sophia Antipolis) in Nice. But the Cote d’Azur for Igor Bartsits is not only about expanding Russian-French scientific ties.
In August 2014 he registered in Cannes, the Mavali company with an authorized capital of 400 thousand euros. Together with Bartsits, the company is owned by his wife Marina Feyzba and their two daughters, Valeria and Alina. According to the registration certificate, on May 5 and 6, 2014, the owners of Mavali purchased a 625 sq. m. and two basements for 400 thousand euros, including a commission of 20 thousand euros.
Grigory Mashanov, senior lawyer at Transparency International Russia, explains that, as director of the institute, Igor Bartsits was not a civil servant and, therefore, was not required to declare his income. “Since Igor Bartsits was not a vice-rector, but only the head of the institute, the legislation on declaring income and controlling illicit enrichment did not concern him,” he says.
One of the first news website of the Russian-French Center — about the international scientific-practical conference “Relations between the EU, Russia and the Slavic countries: economic, legal and geopolitical aspects”, which took place from 6 to 7 May 2014 in Nice. Bartsits said that the Russians “have a lot to learn from the French: to be able to combine the pleasant and the useful, a lot of useless and pleasant, a lot of useful, but unpleasant.” Following his own advice, on May 5, Bartsits bought an apartment, and on May 6 he spoke at a conference.
From the registration certificate of Mavali, you can find out that in 2014, the wife of Igor Bartsits, Marina Feyzba, worked as a director in one of the centers of the RANEPA IGSU. Mentions of it are also found on the website of the university: at the conference “Territorial Reform. Joint view of France-Russia” in November 2014, in addition to Bartsits, from the Russian side took part Vice-Rector of the RANEPA Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev and wife Bartsits, and in 2019 Feizba was moderator of the ceremony of presenting diplomas to graduates of the correspondence magistracy of the IGSU.
According to the Dissernet community, in 2007 Marina Feyzba defended work on the topic “Social capital as a factor in the economic development of the territory.” In her dissertation, multiple incorrect borrowings from other people’s scientific works were found.
Daughter Bartsits Valeria graduated from the international law faculty of MGIMO in 2020 and co-authored with her father published several articles on the organization of state power in France. Both daughters – Valeria and Alina Bartsits – studied at school No. 109 in Troparevo.
The last person involved in the criminal case, Aslan Feyzba, according to Kommersant, is the son of the first dean of the Faculty of Economics of the Abkhaz University, Yazbey Feyzba. AT copies of the memo for a student under the advanced training program of the Distance Learning Institute of the Russian Academy of Public Administration (IDO RAGS), one of the contact persons is Feyzba Natalya Yazbeevna with the email address feyzba@ur.rags.ru. Based on the patronymics of Marina, Aslan and Natalya and their connections with the RANEPA, it can be assumed that they are relatives – a brother and two sisters. In the dissertation of Aslan Facebook, defended at the RAGS in 2006, plagiarism found on 67 pages.
It is interesting that the apartments in Cannes, bought by the former vice-rector and current dean of the IGSU Bartsits, are only 10-13 minutes from the villa of the vice-rector and head of the IBDA Sergey Myasoedov. According to several sources at the RANEPA, he and Bartsits were quite close friends.
“New Newspaper. Europe” sent inquiries to the RANEPA and the government with a request to answer questions about the foreign real estate of Sinelnikov-Murylev and Myasoedov, but at the time of publication did not receive a response. Transparency International – Russia plans to apply to the prosecutor’s office regarding the violations found in the declarations of the rector of the VAVT and the vice-rector of the RANEPA.
